Education and PSHE

Over a year ago, we created Mindful Me as a response to the growing reports of anxiety and self-harm rates that young people were telling us in surveys1 ran through our R U Different? programme. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year for us when we are busy travelling up and down the country briefing local authorities and schools about our world leading social norms intervention programme, R U Different?

Social norms is still widely accepted as being a successful early intervention tool across many different areas, including of course, health and wellbeing, especially that of teenagers whom we know are very much influenced by their peers.

The eternal challenge when commissioning any mainstream preventative programme in health, crime or education is to measure the ‘what if’ in one, three, five or ten years’ time.

Sometimes the ‘what if’ is about defining how many smokers might have been reduced or the levels of abstention from alcohol resulting from correcting social norms.

Sometimes it is about the impacts that can be generated around protective behaviours, i.e. the improved confidence, resilience or self-esteem young people will benefit from by being involved in a particular programme.

As a socially driven, values based organisation, we are acutely aware of our responsibilities to evidence the impacts we are making with young people through our programmes.

The Emotional Health and Wellbeing of our young people remains our greatest challenge. Exam targets, conformity pressures and the 24/7 spotlight of social media are just some of the reasons cited for the rises in anxiety, depression and unhappiness we are seeing in our surveys. Read the rest of this entry »

Social Sense is delighted to welcome Kevin Stoodley to it’s ever expanding team, joining as a full time Programme Developer.
A big advocate of Social Norms, Kevin has a wealth of experience in applying Social Norms work in the field and working with a team of academics to develop techniques around focus group research, test and re-test procedures and report writing.

Kevin’s past has seen him develop and project manage both a 3 year pilot Social Norms Intervention Programme ‘Reality Check’ in 2 Gateshead schools and a 2 year Regional Research Programme evaluating ‘Social Norms 4 Schools’ a Social Norms Intervention Programme across 16 secondary schools. Involving pupils aged 13-15 years, both projects sought to investigate sex and alcohol related risk-taking themes. In 2010, Kevin was awarded ‘Overall Winner’ status by NHS North East’s ‘Sexual Health Awards’.

Currently working towards a PhD in Psychology, Kevin has spent a significant amount of time working alongside Northumbria University to develop ethically sound and academically robust research methodologies, statistical testing and published research. Read the rest of this entry »